By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, May 20, 2005
NEW YORK, May 19
Chris Rock ought to kill "Joey" this fall.
UPN has moved "Smackdown!" from Thursday to Friday night to put four sitcoms on Thursday from 8 to 10 p.m. Most notably, a new comedy series from Chris Rock.
One way or the other, Leslie Moonves is going to wipe out NBC's Thursday night.
As co-president and co-COO of Viacom and chairman of CBS, Moonves oversees both CBS and UPN broadcast networks, which gives him two avenues of attack. And going after NBC's Thursday is not just a hobby for Moonves; it's a mission.
He can't stop talking about NBC, even when it is going to finish the television season in fourth place among the 18- to 49-year-olds it targets, while CBS will finish first among regular programs.
On Wednesday, advertisers sat through an hour of CBS's new-schedule presentation at Carnegie Hall before anyone on stage even mentioned one of the network's new series, because it took Moonves that long to get through all his prepared bits bashing NBC and NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker. (See the cast member of Broadway hit "Avenue Q" on stage with a Zucker puppet, singing "It Sucks to Be Me"; see Moonves digitally inserted into the flick "Million Dollar Baby," socking a punching bag that looks like Zucker, then deadpanning, "now I know what a Zucker punch is.")
As head of CBS, Moonves already brought NBC's Thursday to its knees with a lineup of hour-long series that includes "Survivor," "CSI" and "Without a Trace."
Now, he has Chris Rock, one of the country's hottest comics, locked and loaded on UPN's Thursday night.
The single-camera show, created by Rock, looks back at his childhood. There's no laugh track and Rock does a voiceover. Clips got a gut-busting reaction Thursday morning from hundreds of advertising execs during UPN's announcement of its prime-time slate at Madison Square Garden.
(This week each of the broadcast networks rolled out its fall prime-time plans for advertisers during what's commonly referred to as Upfront Week, when advertisers commit to buying time "upfront" on series.)
Rock came out to sell the show, called "Everybody Hates Chris," which he acknowledged is a kind of middle-finger homage to CBS's outgoing "Everybody Loves Raymond" -- this season's most watched comedy series.
"White man out -- black man in!" Rock quipped, getting a huge laugh from the virtually all-white, mostly male Madison Avenue audience.
He introduced the cast, ending with the only white member, an adorable boy who plays young Rock's school chum.
"We got white people in this show!" Rock shouted, putting his arm around the boy and mussing his hair. "Smile!" Rock told the child. "Show them the whiteness!"
They loved it.
Advertisers also seemed to really enjoy the Parade of Models that has become a UPN upfront presentation tradition. The models are contestants from UPN's popular, Tyra Banks-hosted reality series, "America's Next Top Model." Tyra was there, too.
So was Vanessa Williams, who's starring -- as a mom -- in a new prime-time soap set in Florida called "South Beach." It's being produced by Jennifer Lopez, who showed up to hawk the midseason replacement.
For sheer star power on stage, UPN wins this year's upfront contest.
Returning sitcoms "Eve" and "Cuts" join "Everybody Hates Chris" on Thursday, along with a new comedy, "Love, Inc.," marking the latest return of Shannen Doherty.
To make way for Rock and the other comedies, UPN will move World Wrestling Entertainment's "Smackdown!" to Friday, where UPN has not been a real player.
One reporter sitting next to us thought it was a great programming move, noting that all those "35-year-old guys with 'I-can't-be-mad-at-my-boss' issues by the end of the week" will probably enjoy watching big sweaty men body slam each other on Friday nights.
It's been a long week.
UPN's Monday comedy lineup is back.
So is "America's Next Top Model," Wednesdays at 8, but its lead-out, "Kevin Hill," starring Taye Diggs is not, which is going to make a lot of women very sad.
"Veronica Mars," which struggled on Tuesday nights this season, has been given that hour -- the best slot on UPN's schedule.
"America's Next Top Model" reruns won't continue to air on Friday nights; you'll have to wait until the following Tuesday to catch up. After which, you can watch UPN's new drama "Sex, Lies & Secrets," which is set in Los Angeles and is about sex, lies and secrets.
Not only did Fox suits not cancel the barely watched "Arrested Development, " but this fall the network will kick off its prime-time lineup with it Mondays at 8. It is one of a whopping 11 sitcoms on the network's new schedule.
Fox will start four nights -- Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday -- with two comedies each. The network will have more comedies than NBC and CBS combined.
The trade papers credit Fox with having 12 comedies on its new schedule, but they're counting the one-hour series "Head Cases," which will air Wednesdays after "That '70s Show" and "Stacked." "Head Cases" stars Chris O'Donnell as a hotshot attorney who has a nervous breakdown, spends three months in a "rest home," then is assigned as his outpatient "buddy" a twitchy low-rent lawyer played by Adam Goldberg.
If you count that as a comedy, then you have to count ABC's "Desperate Housewives" and CBS's new "Ghost Whisperer," except that one's unintentionally funny thanks to Jennifer Love Hewitt, who stars as a woman who talks to dead people.
Anyway, during its upfront presentation Thursday afternoon, Fox called "Head Cases" a "dramedy." We prefer to call it a "coma."
So, Fox is kicking off Monday with "Arrested Development," followed by a new sitcom "Kitchen Confidential," which is about a formerly hot chef given a second chance after rehab. It's from Darren Star of "Sex and the City" fame.
Also bound for Monday, a new drama called "Prison Break," about an engineer who robs a bank so that he can get into prison with the floor plan to break out his brother, who's on death row for a murder he did not commit. Apparently hiring a good lawyer was not an option.
"House" is back, Tuesday at 9. Preceding it is a new drama, "Bones," inspired by real-life forensic anthropologist and novelist Kathy Reichs.
"The O.C." is back on Thursday, followed by new drama "Reunion," which is a mystery that reverses the "24" formula. Instead of 24 episodes, each of which covers one hour of the same day, in "Reunion," 20 episodes will span two decades in the life of the ensemble cast, with each episode encompassing one year. Pretty clever.
Friday nights "Bernie Mac" and "Malcolm in the Middle" return, followed by new drama "The Gate," about specialists solving extremely kinky murders in San Francisco -- think "CSI" sweeps episode every single week. Whoohoo!
Fox's Saturday lineup will never change: "Cops," "Cops" and "America's Most Wanted." And just one new comedy is being added to its Sunday night, "The War at Home," about two parents and their teenage kids.